


A Smile or Three

by Nyxelestia



Series: Dynamics [1]
Category: Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - D/s, BDSM, Collars, D/s, F/M, High School, Leashes, M/M, Multi, Romance, Teen Romance, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxelestia/pseuds/Nyxelestia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[This work has been discontinued/abandoned.]</p><p>Spider-Man is a dom. Peter Parker is a sub. Against all odds, this actually works out quite well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://spiderkink.livejournal.com/1612.html?thread=484428#t484428) spiderkink prompt, asking for sub!Peter in a D/s AU, and how that works with a (presumed) dom!Spider-Man. Though I will be honest, I'm mostly in it for the worldbuilding.
> 
> Google Translate tells me _obsequium_ is Latin for ‘submission, deference, obedience’ ect., and _dominatus_ is related to ‘domination, dominion’.

Peter had never been particularly shy about his dynamic. But he’d never let it define him, either. He wasn’t some obsequist or sub’s rights activist, but he tried not to let anyone walk over him when he didn’t want them to.

That was quite possibly one of the most valuable things he’d ever learned from his uncle. For all that Uncle Ben was a bit old-fashioned, he never let anyone but Aunt May push him over, and Aunt May had always made sure Peter knew his rights, knew how to use boundaries and never let doms cross them without his permission.

Sometimes, though, Peter wished the lesson hadn’t stuck so well.

Like when he was getting beat up by Flash.

“Still not taking the picture,” Peter gasped, reeling from the punch across his jaw. He could hear uneasy murmurs around him, but however much it sucked to watch a sub get beat-up by a dom with serious issues, it sucked even more to be beat-up yourself. No one was willing to step in just yet...

...except Gwen Stacy.

Flash already had him by the collar, hand raised for a back-handed hit. Peter was bracing himself for it when a white-clad arm shot across his vision and a thin but firm hand wrapped around Flash’s fist.

“Back off, Flash,” Gwen said tightly.

“Why, is he yours?” Flash challenged. “‘Cause if he is, you’ve been doing a lousy job of keeping him in line.”

“I never pegged you for the type to beat-up subs,” she said, stepping forward and crowding Flash back. He let go of Peter to move back, though glaring at her head-on.

“...I’m not beating him up because he’s a sub-”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “You should know better than that. The rest of us do.”

There was a moment of thick silence as everyone watched the two doms facing off against each other.

Gwen, however broke the tension by stepping back, letting Flash move forward again - though only a little - as she said, “We still on for tutoring?”

Flash glanced around and saw the wary looks around him, and said gruffly to her “Your place, three-thirty?”

“I’ll see you then,” she said with professional cheer, only the slightest edge of dismissal in her voice.

With a frustrated growl, Flash turned and stormed off, and with a firm look from Gwen, the rest of the crowd dispersed.

For a moment Peter just stood there, flushed in the face, as the rest of the kids moved away. He spared a moment to hope this hadn’t scared the younger students, ones who hadn’t manifested yet, before he turned to Gwen and said, “I would’ve been fine, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. She started prodding his head and asking him weird questions, ignoring his indignant protests with an easy, “Relax, I’m just checking for a concussion.”

“It feels like aftercare.”

She only raised a critical, disbelieving eyebrow before finishing up and walking away, her steps punctuated with the sound of the bell ringing.

Okay, so _maybe_ he had occasional obsequiest tendencies that make him smart just a little at her defending him and checking over him so publicly. But he wasn’t going to deny how nice it felt, either.

~*~

“I know a right-hook when I see it,” Uncle Ben said, handing him the steak. “Now tell me, Peter, who did this?”

“Some jerk at school,” Peter said, pressing the frozen meat to his skin.

“I gathered that, but _who_?” Uncle Ben asked, turning on the spot quickly enough to splash water all the way up to Peter’s knees. “Something tells me you didn’t just get into a puppyfight with another sub. If some dom hit you-”

“It’s fine, Uncle Ben,” Peter said. “Really. I can deal with it.”

“...are you sure?” he asked. “Because once Aunt May figures out where that bruise really came from-”

“I don’t need another dom stepping into my fights!” Peter cried out, nearly dropping the steak into the water below.

There was a tense moment, then a slow smile spread over Uncle Ben’s face.

“I can’t say I agree with that,” he said. “But I certainly know the feeling. Fine, I won’t step in - but if this sort of thing happens again-”

“It’s fine,” Peter said hurriedly. “Seriously.”

“I believe you. Just make sure to remember we’re here for you - your Aunt May _and_ me - if you ever need any help.” He patted Peter’s shoulder as he slogged through the water before and headed upstairs. “Now see if there’s anything else worth saving.”

~*~

Hearing Flash’s own teammates tell him, “Dude, you need to stop messing with subs like this, it’s not cool,” was gratifying, especially since Flash still couldn’t get the ball from Peter.

Hearing the resounding _crasssshhh_ as the backboard of the basketball hoop broke, though...not so much.

“Is it true, what I heard? That you humiliated that boy?” Uncle Ben asked in the hallway.

“...yeah,” Peter mumbled. “But this guy - he - he really-”

“Is he the dom that hit you?” Ben asked quietly.

“...maybe...” Peter mumbled.

Uncle Ben sighed. “Peter, when I said I’d let you deal with it, I didn’t mean this. Getting even is not the way to go about it. If he’s being violent-”

“He’s not being _violent_ , not really, he’s just a jerk,” Peter said. “This wasn’t really even about getting even, he was harassing another sub.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “And you didn’t think to mention this to the principal?”

“Geek student body secretary and dork photographer versus their leading basketball player - whose side do you think the school will take when it’s just our word against his and his team’s?”

“This kind of thing shouldn’t be tolerated - your behavior or his,” Uncle Ben said carefully. “Next time this sort of things happens, don’t do property damage or resort to humiliation just to get even. That leaves you no better than an abusive dom. You have other options and you know. Promise me this won’t happen again?”

“...I promise,” he said with a sigh.

“Good. Now, thanks to all this I’ve had to change shifts, so you’re going to need to pick up your Aunt May from work tonight. I don’t want either of you walking home alone in the dark.”

“Got it,” Peter said.

Uncle Ben was about to turn so they could keep walking away, before he looked over Peter’s shoulder and said, “She looks familiar.”

Peter turned and saw Gwen standing there with an amused smile on her face.

When Uncle Ben started going off about his computer and being his probation officer, Peter thought he might die of embarrassment (he did not, unfortunately).

It didn’t get any better when Gwen came up after Uncle Ben and said, “I had a...word...with Flash. I heard what he was doing when you started your schtick with the basketball.”

“You’re not my dom,” Peter said just a tad bit defensively. “Seriously, why does everyone else keep stepping into my fights?”

“Because we care about you?” Gwen offered.

“That’s not-”

“I didn’t talk about you,” she said. “I told him beating up subs was not cool, and he was on the fast track to ending up in prison done day for domestic violence if he kept that up.”

“ _We aren’t even dating!_ ” Peter cried out. “No way you’d be this upset if I were a dom or if he were a sub, too.”

“Maybe I did that for his benefit, and not yours?” Gwen said pointedly. “Trying to stop him from ending up in prison, one day.”

Peter’s jaw snapped shut.

“Look, I’m not...I’m not trying to claim you or anything,” she said. “I like you. I want to look out for you. And Flash isn’t exactly my friend but I’ve known him long enough to want to keep him from ending up...well. I just want everyone playing nicely, here, that’s all.”

“...if he plays nice, I will,” Peter agreed a little reluctantly.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” she said with a smile. She kissed his cheek and started walking away. “Seeya later, Parker!”

Peter reached up to brush his fingers over the warm spot on his cheeks where her lips had been.

“Seeya,” he echoed.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

It was a funeral, and he was pretty sure he should be crying.

It was _Uncle Ben’s_ funeral, and Peter’s eyes had never been drier. But then, Aunt May hadn’t cried yet, either.

He stood somberly by Aunt May’s side as she wrapped the burial collar around Uncle Ben’s neck before the coffin closed for the last time.

It was then that she finally cried, and Peter’s eyes were as dry as a desert.

Peter held her hand tightly as the coffin was lowered into the grave, only letting go when they took their turns to throw in a handful of dirt.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to his uncle as he stood over the grave, holding his handful of dirt. “I’ll look after her, I promise.”

He tossed it in and accepted the handwipe the priest’s assistant or whatever was giving everyone, making sure his skin was spotless before he took Aunt May’s hand in his again.

Her hand against his seemed to be the only part of him that felt warm, despite the ridiculously bright sun. While a part of Peter wanted it to be dark and rainy, he was honestly glad for the sun, for today having the decency to be Uncle Ben’s favorite kind of weather.

Peter didn’t cry for the rest of the services, or during the wake. He didn’t cry on their way home, and he didn’t cry for the rest of that night, either.

When he woke up the next morning, there were wet spots on his pillow around where his eyes were, and he refused to think about where they came from.

~*~

“Look, your uncle died,” Flash said, as if he wasn’t being held up against the lockers by Peter. “And I’m sorry.”

Peter slumped, shaking like a leaf and barely registering the thump of Flash’s feet hitting the floor again. But he didn’t miss a broad hand carding through his hair.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Flash murmured into his ear as Peter leaned in his reassuringly firm touch. “I’m sorry.”

Some not-so-small part of Peter wanted to stay here and let Flash keep comforting him, let him shatter Peter and put him back together again.

But a much bigger part of him absolutely refused to do this _here_ and _now_ , and especially not with Flash of all people.

Not today.

He spared one last moment to absorb that warm touch, before he let go of Flash completely. He didn’t say a single word as he shut his locker and turned away.

Thankfully, neither did Flash.

~*~

Peter laughed when he realized the world thought Spider-Man was a dom. It was a hollow, grating laugh, but still a laugh.

Really, there was no reason the world _should_ think Spider-Man was a dom. But apparently the amount of confidence and self-assurance it would take for a guy to put on a unitard and run around the night beating people up meant he had to be a dom, and if it weren’t for the fact people thinking he was a dom further helped cover his identity, he might’ve tried to do something about it.

As it was, when a mugger he webbed to the wall turned out to be a sub and in defeat said, “Please don’t hurt me, sir,” Peter had to muster up all the acting skills he had (re: none) to say, “Just play nice for the cops, okay? Think you can do that?”

“Yes!”

“Good boy.”

Well. If everyone was so dead-set on Spider-Man being a dom, then Peter certainly didn’t have a reason to correct them just yet. If criminals were more intimidated by a dom vigilante, and if Peter Parker couldn’t possibly be Spider-Man because he’s a sub, then really it was just a win-win for Peter.

He reminded himself of that when he heard a kid at school wonder what it was like to be Spider-Man and all her friends pointed out she never could be, because she was a sub.

Win-win. Really.

~*~

Peter would admit Gwen’s parents confused him, just a little.

Peter could’ve sworn that Gwen’s dad, being a _police captain_ , was a dom. Yet neither he nor Gwen’s mom wore a collar or bracelets, and throughout the entire dinner the family listened to Mrs. Stacy’s crisp orders.

When Peter did figure it out, he had to restrain himself from bashing his head into a wall and worrying if there was more to that internalized dynamichism stuff than he thought.

A sub not just in the police force but _leading_ the police force...no wonder Captain Stacy was so tough.

~*~

(Unfortunately not tough enough to survive the Lizard.)

~*~

Peter _had_ been planning on staying away from Gwen, really. After Captain Stacy’s little speech on subs protecting doms just as much as the other way around, after the man _died_ right in front of him ( _why do people keep dying in his arms?_ ), Peter wasn’t going to turn back on his word.

But when Gwen came to his home, when she heard of his promise to her father, when she demanded, “Why can’t we protected each other? Why does it only have to be one of us?”, well...

She smiled when he whispered, _“But those are the best kind,”_ in her ear, and halfway through the class she reached her hand over her shoulder, and for a brief moment when he slipped his fingers through hers, she held them tightly in reassurance.

Maybe he wasn’t doing the right thing, staying with her. But it didn’t have to be just the wrong thing, either.

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

It was the third time he’d shown up at her window, beaten-up and needing help.

It was the first time she put him in his knees.

Peter was antsy after the night out on the streets, pacing while waving off her attention as he ran over the details of a robbery he’d stopped over and over again, how he’d lost one of them and _how did that happen_ and oh god what if they killed someone and what did he do wrong-

She eventually reached up and wrapped her hand around the back of his neck. A sharp pinch and a sharper _down, bug boy_ whispered into his ear, and it was like Peter’s knees melted away entirely as he sunk to the thickly-carpeted floor, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“Stay,” she said as she twisted his hair through her fingers.

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, and tried not to think of her patching him up as aftercare.

Instead, he stayed calm and still as he could, letting her work without trying to move or talk. And every time he wanted to, was about to, she’s reach into his hair and give it a sharp twist, the slight pain in his scalp effectively distracting him.

When she was done, she put away her medical supplies without letting him up, instead sitting in her armchair and beckoning him towards her.

He shuffled forward a little on his knees, and she carefully moved her fingers over his scalp, from his temple to the nape of his neck, lacing her fingers together through the hair on the back of his head.

“You can’t do everything,” she said. “You know that, right? Even the police force - hundreds of people with the city’s power and resources behind them, can’t stop every criminal in the city. You’re one person working on your own, and all you’ve got are some side-effects of a spider-bite on your side.”

“But I-”

“ _No_ ,” she said sharply, squeezing his head just a little. He drooped so his forehead was pressed between her knees.

“What’s the point of all this if a single corner store robber can get away from me?”

“You’ve stopped dozens of criminals that the police wouldn’t have been able to catch since you’ve started being Spider-Man,” she said, releasing her hold.

“Is that enough?”

“If someone else had gotten the blond robber before he killed your uncle, would you say it wasn’t enough?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, and she started massaging his head.

“It’s enough for somebody, out there. There is somebody out there who is alive because of what you do. Even if it’s just one person - don’t you think that’s worth it?”

“...I couldn’t save your dad...” he said. Her fingers froze.

“Look at me, Peter,” she said, releasing his head. He slowly moved his head, his forehead on her knees being replaced with his chin as he looked up to her desperately.

“There are so many ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ and other _ifs_ about this situation - you may have made some mistakes...but so did Connors, and your dad, and maybe even _my_ dad. You can’t dwell on it. You just have to keep moving forward and do your best to make sure it never happens to anyone else again.”

She gently took a hold of his chin and leaned down until her face was only a few inches away from his.

“Can you do that for me?”

“...yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding. “Promise.”

“Good,” she said, and gently tugged him into a strong kiss, moving her hand to cup the back of his head and hold on tightly.

Peter let himself be held together by her fingers and her lips.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of short, sorry - school and NaNoWriMo are taking up most of my time, right now.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Every comment feeds the muse. ♥
> 
> And feel free to [spread the word](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/post/35634812769/spider-man-d-s-au-fic-a-smile-or-three-ch-3) about this fic! :)


	4. Chapter 4

When Gwen first showed him the collar, he just stared a little, dumbfounded.

“We...really? I mean, it’s just - we haven’t even been dating that long,” Peter said.

“If you don’t want to wear it-”

“No, I do! It’s just...”

“Do you like it?” she asked. “There was a better one at the store, but I only had enough money for one collar and the other one wasn’t thin enough to get around school rules, so I got this one.”

The collar was half-an-inch wide, well below the school’s official limit, and the pseudo-leather was a simmering black that wasn’t shiny, with small black clasps at the ends (also well within school rules, which seemed convinced wearing a collar was one step away from being strangled to death). When he tilted it in the light, a faint chemical structure motif appeared in holographic silver.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Figure that out and you get a reward,” she said with a sly wink.

“What’s the reward?”

“I put it on you.”

He swallowed a few times at that, went home, and spent hours figuring it out.

When she came by his house the next day, he raised an eyebrow at her and asked, “Endorphin? Really?”

“It seemed fitting,” she said. “And it was either that or a spider-web, and _that_ seemed just a little too on-the-nose.”

Peter laughed as he kneeled in front of the coffee table. She sat on the couch behind him, her knees pressing into the backs of his shoulders. She lifted up the collar and ran her fingers over one of the edges, before tilting Peter’s head back a little and wrapping the collar around him. She tilted his head forward again, and for a moment the collar tightened as she snapped it shut, before it was resting comfortably around his neck.

He rotated his head as she ran two fingers under it by something almost like rote as she made sure it wasn’t too tight, her warm fingers a sharp contrast to the still-warming collar. Then Peter smiled as he felt a press of soft lips on the back of his head.

He turned his head so she was kissing his temple, and for a moment, he shut his eyes and just enjoyed the feeling of her warm lips against his heated skin.

Then he heard the _snap_ of a camera in the doorway, and his eyes flew open to see his Aunt May there with a camera, smiling fondly and looking just a little nostalgic.

“Aunt May!” he cried out indignantly.

Gwen turned and smiled when she saw Aunt May standing there with her little digital camera.

“Your first collar, sweetie, I had to get a picture,” she said.

“No, Aunt May, no you didn’t!” he said. “It’s - not necessary!”

Gwen was laughing now, which was just making everything worse. “Can I see the picture?”

Peter groaned as Aunt May handed her the camera, and oh, god, they were sharing e-mails so Aunt May could send them to her and _what was wrong with the world_ and this was so embarrassing. He spared a moment to wonder why the hell anyone ever agreed to go on that weird reality show with guys proposing to their girlfriends before he turned his head to look up at the two most important women in his life.

“I remember when I first gave his uncle a collar,” Aunt May said, terrifying Peter with her occasional glance towards where his ‘baby’ photo albums were. He had to distract her from them, somehow. “It was one of my mothers’ favorite collars, actually - they didn’t have these printed, tee-shirt style collars back then - and he said he hated the way it looked but it felt so comfortable he refused to take it off until I got him another one.”

Peter thought of the photo on the corkboard behind his computer. “The browny-yellow one with the black embroidery in the middle?”

“That’s the one.”

“He said it made him look like a bee with diarrhea,” Peter said, which made both women laugh above him. “Hey, Aunt May, maybe you can show her the pictures of him in the other ones?”

“I think she’d be more interested in your baby pictures,” Aunt May said, and yup, it was official, he was going to die of embarrassment.

Still, the brightness in Gwen’s eyes was nice, and hearing Aunt May laugh for the first time since Uncle Ben had died was worth all the embarrassment in the world.

~*~

The collar was sleep-safe, and Peter delighted in the opportunity to never take it off, ever (except showers, because it was sadly not too waterproof). Unfortunately, it wasn’t thin enough to be hidden by the tight spandex, and Peter was still pretty intent on keeping Spider-Man a dom in the eyes of the public.

“How about I take it off you before you go out crime-fighting?” she asked.

“I’m not - I sometimes start at really random times, including the day when your mom would be around and your neighbors awake...”

Gwen looked disappointed but said, “You always end late at night - can you at least let me put it back on?”

Peter smiled.

So now, here was Peter, kneeling on her floor by her bed while she fastened the collar around his neck again. Like always, she checked the collar tightness (despite the fact it had _one size_ that they’d already established fit him perfectly, and seriously, how did she get the right size without measuring him? How did girls _do_ that?). Peter considered it magnanimous of him that he restrained himself from making jokes about taking all those health class lectures a bit too seriously, and instead leaned into her touch when she reached the end of her circle around his neck.

“Do you mind?” he asked quietly, feeling suddenly just a little sleepy. “That everyone thinks Spider-Man is a dom?”

“Hm...little disappointed, but not much,” she said, running her left hand through his hair while Peter continued nuzzling her right hand. “I’d like it if the world could know that Spider-Man belonged to someone, but I still prefer you being safe. And regardless, I’m the one whose feet you’re kneeling at.”

Peter smiled. “Maybe one day...”

“The world could do with a sub superhero if you ever go that route,” she said. “Sub or woman.”

“Isn’t Iron Man supposed to be a sub?”

“Tony Stark is a switch, I think,” she said. “It’s...been really unclear? But then no one can tell if he’s bi or straight, either.”

Peter laughed again. “That’d be pretty funny. Go from all dom superhero stories to an actual superhero being a switch, then going back to subs. Wonder what that says about us.”

“‘Us’?”

“Like, society, that they’d rather take a switch even though, y’know, _switch_ , because at least he’s half dom,” Peter said.

“There still aren’t any female superheroes. Or ones who aren’t white. Or that many in general, really,” she pointed out, pulling her hand away from his face to run them through his hair, detangling the sweat-matted mess. “You could start a trend.”

Peter thought of the criminals on the street, people in the hallways. The kid who wanted to be Spider-Man only for everyone to crack sexist and dynamichist jokes and laugh at her.

“Maybe,” he said. He leaned back to snuggle into her shins for a few more moments before he had to go home.

~*~

Peter hated to admit it even to himself, but when he first saw Flash approaching their table at lunchtime, his first instinct was to duck behind Gwen and lower his head so Flash wouldn’t notice him.

Then he mentally berated himself - and he called himself a _progressive_ sub? - and sat with his back straight and head high.

But the other boy was only interested in confirming a tutoring session later that day.

“I guess you’ll need to come by later,” she said apologetically.

“I don’t mind hanging around in the background or something while you tutor him,” Peter said, pretending he didn’t want to kick himself for saying that...especially since he could _actually_ kick himself, now.

She smiled at him.

Flash didn’t seem to mind, either. Quite the opposite, in fact - he seemed to need to stop himself from smiling whenever he saw Peter splayed out across the bed, his head either pressed up against Gwen’s thigh or in her lap while she talked Flash through his homework.

Peter couldn’t tell who was more surprised, himself or Gwen - or maybe even Flash - when at the end of the hour as Flash was packing up, he blurted out to Peter, I’m sorry.”

“...for what?” Peter asked.

“For beating on you and being such an asshole,” Flash said, flushing as he realized what it was he’d said, clearly not having meant to say that out loud. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” Peter agreed as he started to push himself up.

Gwen pressed her hand against his shoulder to push him back down and asked Flash, “So why did you?”

“...I don’t know,” Flash admitted, shouldering his backpack and looking _nervous_ of all things. “But I won’t do it again, promise.”

He took a deep breath, clearly bracing himself for something.

“I want to be a better dom than that.”

Well.

Peter could get behind that.

~*~

“Bye, Gwen,” Peter said after their latest movie marathon date, standing inside the doorway and watching as she walked down the block. Despite the contrast between the warm air inside and the slight chill outside, Peter didn’t shut the door until he couldn’t see Gwen any longer.

Back inside the house, Aunt May gestured him over with an expression on her face Peter knew meant she wanted to talk about something serious. She handed him a potato and the skinning knife, and started slicing a tomato as she worked out what she wanted to say.

“This was the sort of thing your uncle was meant to talk to you about,” she finally said when she moved on to dicing some carrots.

Peter frowned as he skinned another potato. “What is ‘this’, exactly?”

“Well, you seem to be getting so serious with Gwen-”

Peter groaned as he realized what this was about, his hands waving wildly while still holding the potato and skinner. “Over cooking dinner, really?”

She seemed amused by his distress. “I want you to be safe.”

“They already cover this at school, you know,” Peter said. “And we’re not one of those crazy abstinence-only schools, we learn how to use condoms and check collar-tightness and all that other stuff. You _really_ don’t need to talk to me about this.”

She laughed, taking a ginger root and slicing it. “I believe you, I remember signing the consent forms. I’m just trying to remind you to use what you learned. Promise me you will be safe?”

“Promise, Aunt May.”

“Good - now get finish that potato.”

~*~

Flash got progressively nicer to Peter as the weeks went by, a fact which worried Peter when Flash invited him and Gwen to join the Spider-Man Fan Club.

“I’m sure he hasn’t figured out your secret,” Gwen said placatingly at lunch.

And no, despite Peter’s paranoia at the increasingly later hours the tutoring sessions were happening, Flash really hadn’t figured it out yet.

The real story, though, was even weirder.

“...he has a crush on me?” Peter asked incredulously, shifting his weight on the hard concrete he was sitting on.

Badly stifling her amusement, Gwen nodded. “He apologized for it last night.”

“What did you say?” Peter asked, tilting his head as she reached down to start stroking his hair. As passing teacher narrowed her eyes at them a little suspiciously, but Peter wasn’t kneeling and there were no rules against sitting on the ground.

“That my father went toe to toe with a giant lizard and saved Spider-Man, and that if he touched you in any way without asking us both first I’d show him just how much of my father’s daughter I am,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed.

Even as Peter worried about her words, remembering her father vividly, he couldn’t help but get drawn into her possessiveness and ever-so-slightly aggressive protection.

“That’s kind of hot, actually,” Peter said, and she leaned down to kiss him with a smile.

The teacher nearby coughed pointedly after a moment, and they broke apart laughing, Peter pressing his face into her thigh as she apologized.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment! They make my day. ♥


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, finals are kind of eating my soul. Hope the slightly longer chapter makes up for it. :)

All the secrecy came crashing down when Peter did, right into Gwen’s fire escape.

When Flash was there.

He’d only looked through the other windows in the Stacy apartment to see that Mrs. Stacy and Gwen’s three brothers were in other rooms before approaching, and he didn’t realize Flash was there until Gwen was opening the window and Peter heard her demanding silence from Flash.

“You’re friends with Spider-Man?!” Flash asked, eyes wide. Peter could practically see stars in them.

“Flash, you need to go, now,” Gwen said as Peter stumbled to her bed, trying to keep silent.

Unfortunately, when he landed on his bad leg, his single “Ow! Mother-!” were enough to make Flash go, “Parker?”

Peter and Gwen both froze, before Gwen said with a steely voice, “If you breathe a word of this to anyone-”

“I won’t!” Flash cried out, throwing his hands up defensively. “I want to help, that’s all. I’ll keep my mouth shut, promise.”

Gwen looked about as doubtful as Peter felt, but in the end she just said, “Peter, lie down. Flash, elevate his leg.”

They both complied, Peter gingerly splaying himself across her bed while Flash folded some of Gwen’s pillows in half to raise Peter’s leg, holding the shin to keep it steady as Gwen started to peel Peter out of the suit.

“Whoa,” Flash said when the mask came away. The two boys stared at each other for a few moments, then Gwen poked at a cut on his head and Peter flinched and hissed in pain.

“Keep pressure on that,” Gwen ordered Flash, who nodded and let go of Peter’s leg, stepping around her and taking the folded up tissue she was holding out to him.

“I thought you were a sub,” Flash said quietly as he pressed down on the cut.

“I am,” Peter said while Gwen rooted around under her bed for the med kit she kept there.

“But Spider-Man-”

“-acts like what most people stereotype a dom as,” Peter said.

Peter wanted to come up with something else to get the flabbergasted look off Flash’s face, but the suit gone made Peter really cold in the evening chill, and he was too busy trying to wrap the blanket around himself to care. Let Flash be a dynamachist, that was his problem.

The room was fairly silent after that, Gwen working on fixing the cut on his face and the sprained knee, speaking only to tell Peter to move something or have Flash hold something. Peter, still shivering, huddled in the fleece blanket and was caught between leaning into Flash and pulling away every time the other boy would reach up to wrap it tighter around Peter or drape another one over him. In the end, Peter just stayed as still as possible. It was difficult, though, with the shivering. But thankfully that trailed off by the time Gwen plucked the collar out of his backpack again and wrapped it around his neck, snapping it shut and filling him up with warm reassurance once again.

Once Peter was all wrapped up in bandages and Gwen had put everything away, all three seemed to find themselves at a bit of a loss on what to do.

“Seriously,” Peter said, slowly pushing himself up from where he was leaning back on her headboard. “If you try to say a word of this to anyone-”

“I won’t!” Flash said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m not that much of an asshole!”

“Well that’s debatable,” Peter muttered.

“Oh, come on!” Flash protested. “I’m president of your fan club, why the hell would I turn you in?”

They all froze at that, before Gwen let out what sounded like a choked-off chuckle, and Peter twisted his fingers in her duvet as he started to process that little factoid all over again.

“Holy crap,” Flash said as realization sunk in. “I’m the president of your _fanclub_!”

Gwen finally burst out laughing when she looked at his face, while Peter started to blush as all the implications sunk in.

“Are you going to leave the club now that you know?” Peter asked, pushing himself up. He nearly jump out of his skin in surprise when Flash helped him.

“...no,” Flash said. “Though, you know, a lot of them have been wanting to find a way to get Spider-Man to speak at a club event or something-”

Peter groaned as Gwen started laughing again, and Flash cut himself off with a smug smile.

“Not happening,” Peter said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and ignoring how this made his thigh press up against Flash’s. “Look what happened when you heard me say less than two words!”

He stood up, one hand on Gwen’s headboard and the other on Flash’s shoulder for leverage. He spent a few moments gasping through the pain in his leg, but soon enough the pain meds Gwen gave him started to kick in. Gwen massaging his neck certainly helped - as did Flash rubbing large circles across Peter’s back.

Once he could comfortably stand on his own without help, Peter reached for his suit, and Flash started up again.

“I’m just saying,” Flash said as Peter started to tug on the suit. He tried not to think about how he’d been lounging around in his underwear for almost half an hour in front of Flash. “A lot of people look up to you.” A pause. “Including me.”

“Even now that you know Spider-Man is a sub?” Peter asked, struggling to get his hands through the arms of the suit.

“Especially now that I know Spider-Man is a sub,” Flash said.

Huh.

“You’re really going to keep your mouth shut about this?” Gwen asked as Peter took the mask from her.

“Promise,” Flash repeated from earlier as Peter tugged on his mask.

“Good,” Peter pushed himself carefully onto the fire escape, stepping onto the fire escape and testing his knee by turning to look at them both. “Hasta la vista, then.”

He fled before the situation could get any weirder than it already was.

~*~

Flash kept his word and didn’t tell a soul about Peter being Spider-Man - but he wasn’t unaffected by the revelation, either. He kept tagging around after Peter at school, often watching him at strange moments or popping up at random when Peter least expected it, his mild crush on Peter and his fanboying over Spider-Man colliding into a barely-suppressed awe that was only held in check by years of old antagonism between them, and a mountain of unspoken apologies to go with it.

Peter wondered if this was what having a puppy was like.

“Are you jealous?” Peter asked when he mentioned all this to Gwen in the bathroom.

“He’s not touching you and he’s not exposing your secret, so I’m not too upset,” she said, washing her hands. “But - do you want me to make him back off?”

“...I’m curious,” Peter said, leaning against the hand-dryers. “To see what he’ll do. And I can make him back-off on my own, you know.”

Shaking her hands out as she dried them on some paper towels, Gwen smiled and said, “I know, bug boy - doesn’t mean you have to, though.”

She threw the paper towels into the trashcan. Actually into it, not just towards it, because apparently girls actually tried to keep their bathrooms clean on their own. Definitely one of the advantages of being a sub guy.

With one now-dry hand, she reached up to stroke his hair, and Peter ducked his head to lean into her touch.

“Okay,” he said finally. “I can live with that.”

~*~

Peter started checking into Gwen’s rooms almost religiously before swinging into her fire-escape. The first two times he saw Flash was there, he turned away, opting to go straight home and get his collar back on the next morning.

The third time, though, he decided to land instead.

Flash, seated on the bed and facing the window, actually jumped in surprise when he did that. Gwen already had a smile on her face when she turned around to look at Peter.

“Hey,” she greeted as she opened the window. “Are you hurt?”

“Nah,” Peter said as he hopped into her room. “Just wanted to say hi and all that.” When she raised an eyebrow, Peter added, “To both of you, since you guys are here and all.”

“Hi,” Flash said, glancing a little unsurely between Gwen and Peter as she moved back to her chair at the desk and Peter pulled off his mask.

“Are you going to tell me the real reason on your own or do I have to make you?” Gwen asked, cocking her head at Peter with a slightly smug smile on her face while he dropped his backpack into her armchair.

“...I’m not jealous!” Peter said.

“Uh-huh,” she said disbelievingly.

“Jealous of who?” Flash asked in surprise. “Because we’re both doms here.”

“So?” Peter asked, crossing his arms.

“I don’t swing that way!” Flash cried out.

“Quiet!” Gwen said immediately, lowly. “The last thing we need is my mom checking in on us.”

Peter immediately lowered his arms to his side and ducked his head in apology, and Flash looked a little chastised, too. Gwen petted Peter’s head in forgiveness, before turning to Flash.

“Don’t be a dynamachist,” she said sternly. “You’re better than that, I know you are.”

“I’m not one, I’m just saying that’s not my thing,” Flash insisted, crossing his arms as Peter had a moment before.

“If anything,” Gwen continued. “I should be the one jealous of you. You’ve already admitted to liking him-”

“I’m not trying to stake a claim on him,” Flash said.

“Good,” Peter said, eyes flicking towards his backpack where his collar was right now.

Flash’s face crumpled, and Peter couldn’t help but add, “You’ve been watching me and following me around for weeks.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be creepy,” Flash began.

“It’s not about being creepy,” Peter said, pulling away from Gwen’s touch to face Flash completely. “It’s about you being really, really obvious.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Flash repeated. He paused. “Actually, no, I’m not. I like you, so what? I haven’t done anything about it!”

“That doesn’t make things better, you know,” Peter cried out, feeling something agitated and ancient coil deep in his muscles.

“ _Quiet_!” Gwen snapped.

“Is this why you used to beat me up?” Peter asked, keeping his voice obligingly low. “Because you were getting off on it?”

“...maybe?”

“ _Maybe_?!”

“That’s it!” Gwen hissed.

She clapped one hand over Peter’s mouth and the other around the back of his neck and snapped _down, bug boy_ sharply in his ear.

Peter went down.

He fell to his knees, and even with Flash there, he could feel some of his tension pouring out of him, her grip on him opening up a pressure valve in his very being as he sat back on his ankles and looked up at her with wide, waiting eyes.

“I will let you speak,” she said. “But for right now, keep quiet, okay?”

Peter nodded, and without removing either of her hands from Peter’s head, she turned to face Flash sharply.

“You and I have already talked about why beating up subs makes you a bad dom, and you’ve listened and gotten better,” she said. “But you still owe him an apology.”

“I’m sorry,” Flash said to him. It was placating and sincere all at once, and rather than responding, Peter looked up at Gwen.

“Do you accept?” she asked him.

Peter blinked.

She sighed, shaking her head. “You’re not getting out of this, Peter, not yet.”

Peter shut his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hand still plastered firmly over his face.

Keep it simple. Flash was a dom; Flash used to hurt him; Flash didn’t hurt him now; and Flash said sorry.

Peter nodded once, and Gwen let go of his neck to stroke Peter’s hair.

“I know you were trying to help out Molly, but that stunt you pulled in the gym with the basketball was stupid on a lot of levels and you know it,” she said, her voice much softer with him than with Flash. “Are you going to apologize for that? Or should I make you?”

Peter’s eyes flared wide open, and Gwen sighed. “I’d rather you do that on your own.”

Peter breathed deep, eyes flicking over to Flash. It was one thing to accept an apology, another one to give it.

But then, Flash had apologized to Peter. He’d had a lot more to say sorry for, and a lot more pride to climb over to say it, but he did. He may not be a good dom, yet, but he was certainly on his way there.

Peter supposed he could reciprocate the effort.

He looked up at Gwen again, and when she repeated, “Are you going to apologize?”, Peter nodded.

She released her hand from his mouth, and Peter missed the warmth on his face. But he focused his attention on Flash, and after working his jaw for a moment, he said, “I’m sorry about the basketball thing.”

“I accept,” Flash said, face relaxing inexplicably with relief.

“Good,” Gwen said, her free hand on her hip as she used the other one to keep stroking Peter’s hair. “Now will you two play nice and _please_ keep your voices down?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter mumbled, turning to lean into her thigh a bit, slumping against her firm stance.

“I can do that,” Flash said, nodding eagerly and keeping his eyes on Peter.

“Good,” Gwen said. “Peter, I’m going to let go of you right now, okay? I need to get the collar.”

Peter nodded, leaning away and kneeling with his back straight again, narrowing his eyes at Flash a little as Gwen rooted through his backpack. Peter had to struggle not to grin smugly when he saw the way Flash swallowed as he looked at something over Peter’s head, probably the collar. But it must’ve shown on his face, because Gwen gently pressed down on his eyelids, making sure his eyes were firmly shut before she wrapped the collar around his neck again.

Wrap, snap, snap, two fingers around his neck, and then, even though he was going to have to travel halfway across the city to reach his bed, it felt like he was already home again.

By now beyond caring about Flash’s presence, Peter breathed out a sigh of relief as he turned his head to where he heard Gwen standing, going up onto his knees completely so he could press his face into her sternum as he wrapped his arms around her and said briefly, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, bug boy,” she said, stroking his hair one last time before twisting the strands through her fingers and gently tugging on it. “Now up - you need to go soon before my mom starts checking in more, okay?”

Peter nodded, rising to his feet with all the spider’s grace he had. He looked over to Flash, ready to give him a _’See? Claimed!’_ look, only to blink in surprise at the way the other boy’s eyes seemed glued to Peter’s neck.

Unable to think of anything under that intense gaze, Peter turned to grab his mask off the bed and yank it on. He didn’t really have to say anything, though - the look on Gwen’s face was enough to tell him she and Flash were going to have some serious words as soon as Peter was gone.

He tried not to feel flattered at the thought of two doms facing off over him, really. He’d save all his imagination about Gwen’s quiet aggressiveness and Flash’s pent-up, controlled violence for when he was home and in the shower and didn’t have to feel any guilt over whatever passed through his head then.

“Are you going to be okay for the night?” Gwen asked, smoothing down the edges of his mask over his shoulder.

“I’ll be fine,” Peter promised. On a whim, he leaned down and kissed her again, knowing it was kind of a dick move with Flash still watching and not really caring as Gwen wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him closer, keeping it brief to prevent any wetspots on the spandex between their lips.

“Stay safe,” she ordered, before letting go. Peter nodded once, and leapt out onto the fire escape, and aimed his webshooter upwards and out.

When he heard Flash’s, “Not gonna lie, that was really hot,” Peter only grinned as he jumped into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! ♥ Every concrit helps me be a better writer, and every comment feeds my muse.


	6. Chapter 6

He’d heard a call go out on the police scanner saying there was some kind “drunken, violent gang” causing trouble at a party on top of a loft building just on the edge of Soho. They turned out to be three drunk guys with anger management issues - or maybe a bad trip, judging by all the weird pills and powders Peter caught glimpses of, who knows. Either way, it took no time at all to web them to a railing, harmless, and all without him needing to strike a single blow.

It took him a little longer to realize that he was being filmed by about a dozen cellphones and at least two camcorders.

“...hi,” Peter said, remembering to thrown off the pitch of his voice just slightly.

“We love you, Spider-Man!” a half-drunk girl in a goth-cheerleader outfit and a glow-in-the-dark collar shouted out from the crowd. The rest of the small crowd cheered, and though they couldn’t see it, Peter grinned at them.

“I love you guys, too,” Peter said. Even more cheers sprang out as Peter gave a theatrical little bow, before backflipping from that position straight onto the railing, balancing ‘precariously’ on the edge, smiling and preening just a little at all the impressed gasps and impressed oohing and ahing they were doing. “Are the rest of you going to play nice?”

“We will!” said a slightly-less-drunk guy covered in glitter, also wearing a glow in the dark collar. Soho, man, _Soho_.

“Good,” Peter said authoritatively. He hoped this would play out well once it got online. The people liking Spider-Man wouldn’t really help him directly, but it would probably come more in handy one day than everyone hating him.

There was a roar of support from the intoxicated crowd, and wow, fans, Peter still had trouble wrapping his head around that, sometimes. Well, a lot of the time, actually.

Most of the time, honestly.

“Be nice to the cops when they get here!” Peter yelled out, and did another backflip, sticking to the wall of the next building over and scrambling up until he was on the roof. He peered over the edge and waved at the crowd one last time, before disappearing entirely.

~*~

Peter wondered what it said about him when his only response to seeing Flash waiting by his locker was a single raised eyebrow, one which was probably Gwen’s bad influence to begin with.

But Flash didn’t actually say anything until Peter opened the door to his locker, which was when Flash leaned in and quietly asked, “Why did you decide to make everyone think Spider-Man is a dom?”

“I didn’t,” Peter said, shuffling his books and papers around in the complex pattern needed to get through two AP science courses in a row before lunch. “I was just being me, and everyone jumped to conclusions.”

“Why were you trying to act like I dom?”

“I _wasn’t_ ,” Peter said. “I was just being myself. A more intimidating version of myself, but still myself.”

Flash stared in surprise. “How come you never did that with me?”

“I _did_!” Peter said, closing his locker door and turning sharply to face Flash. “I just didn’t my, um, extras to back me up, back then. And that was when you beat me up.”

Flash looked apologetic, at least.

“Why the sudden interest?” Peter asked.

“Have you seen the videos of you from last Friday night?” Flash asked. “They’re...”

Words were never Flash’s strong point.

“Yeah,” Peter said with a solemn nod, starting to head towards the bathrooms.

“Right, well, you were _really_ acting like a dom in them. Seriously, I’m starting to wonder if you’re a closet switch or something.”

“Never really felt the need or desire to dominate someone else in my life,” Peter said. “I just don’t like being pushed around by anyone who isn’t _my_ dom.”

“Oh,” Flash said, clearly not sure how to respond to that. Seriously, why the hell was acting so weird, now?

“Now if you’ll excuse me...” Peter said, pushing open the bathroom door. Flash started to follow him, until Peter pointed to the door. The dom flushed as he realized he’d nearly stepped into the girls’ bathroom.

Peter darted into the bathroom before Flash could say anything else.

Inside, all the girls jerked in surprise at seeing him. “Sub, promise,” Peter said, and most of them relaxed even before spotting the collar on his neck.

One, though, seemed to notice the way he was eying the door. He didn’t know her name, though he did know she was the tennis captain and always blinked at the wrong moment in a photograph.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, just a dom guy being weird,” Peter said.

“Need me to make him back off?”

“Nah, I got it, he’ll probably go away soon on his own if he isn’t gone already.”

She shrugged and turned her attention back to the mirror.

Eventually, Peter peeked his head out and indeed, Flash was gone, and Peter scurried to lit class. He picked a seat, saved the one in front of him for Gwen, and started looking up the videos of Spider-Man on Friday night.

He didn’t think he was acting particularly dom-y as he watched them.

But apparently everyone else did, judging by all the comments about people wanting to kneel for him, wanting him to collar them, and even doms prefacing most of their comments with ‘if I Switched...’. Peter stopped reading when the comments started to descend into duaphobic jokes against Iron Man.

He didn’t really get how a guy in a flying, weaponized suit of red and gold armor was supposed to be less cool than a guy in a unitard.

People were _weird_.

~*~

“You’re unusually quiet today,” Gwen said near the end of the next week.

“Sorry,” Peter said. “Someone made a joke earlier about how I sounded a bit like Spider-Man and I kinda freaked out.”

“So you...planned to just never talk again?”

“I wasn’t thinking it through,” Peter admitted.

Gwen pursed her lips and simply held up another bite of the curry rice thing.

“I’ll figure something out,” she said.

“Thanks,” Peter murmured.

And figure it out she did. At the end of the day, she met him by his locker and without a word, she grabbed his wrist and led him to the nearest bathroom, one of the smaller boys’ ones.

He smiled warmly at Molly on the way in, then blinked in surprise to see their lacrosse captain, of all people, pass them by to take Molly’s hand in his and walk away. When did she become a thing with one of Flash’s friends?

He turned around to ask Gwen about it, only to see her glancing critically towards the bottom of the stall doors.

“We’re alone,” Peter promised, keep his voice low and his ears on high. Though it was hard to say ‘ears’ when his entire body was like one giant ear, constantly detecting vibrations in the air around them.

“What, exactly, do you do for your ‘Spider-Man voice’?” she asked.

“Lower my voice slightly, talk a little faster, and channel my non-existent inner dom,” Peter said.

“Hmm...say something Spider-Man-y without lowering your voice.”

“Spider-Man-y?”

She _looked_ at him, and he quickly quipped, “You know, if you’re going to rob a store, don’t dress like a robber - that just makes everything too easy, especially for me.”

Gwen nodded surely. She made Peter hold her books, stopping only to straighten his jacket before leading him out of the bathroom.

He followed her to debate practice in confusion, holding her books carefully.

“Why did you-”

“I wanted to see your Spider-Man impersonation,” Gwen said cheerfully.

“...impersonation?”

“Mary!” Gwen called out to one of the girls in the thespian hall.

“Yeah?” the other girl asked, as Peter got even more confused.

“You gotta hear this,” Gwen said with a playful excitement that didn’t seem like her at all. “Peter does an amazing Spider-Man impersonation, you’ve got to see this.”

And that was how Peter became the Midtown Science High Spider-Man Impersonator.

By the end of the week, people were coming up to them at lunch with their phones out, and Gwen pulled her scarf off Peter’s wrist and wrapped it around his face (“kinda like a mask”) before allowing him to do that.

God, Peter loved reverse psychology.

And he loved his girlfriend even more.

“Hey,” one guy - one of Molly’s new boyfriend’s friends? - asked him. “You should be the Spider-Man fanclub mascot.”

...nevermind.

~*~

“Why do you hate the club so much?” Gwen asked when they were walking home that day.

“I don’t hate it,” Peter said. “I just don’t want to go, myself.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t that seem just a bit too narcissistic to you?” Peter asked, twisting his fingers through the light chain belt she’d attached to his collar as a makeshift leash.

“So?” Gwen asked. “Considering all the bad stuff most of the official channels say about you, a dose of narcissism might be good for you.”

“I don’t want to risk that power going to my head,” he said, dropping the chain.

Peter had hoped a jovial and reassuring tone of voice would put her inquisitiveness to rest.

Instead, a step or two later he felt a sharp tug on his neck. He twisted in place to see her standing still and staring thoughtfully at him. He felt distinctly like a sample in a petri dish.

“Gwen?” he asked. He tried to take a step back to tug on the leash, but it slipped only a centimeter or two before her grip tightened around it again.

“Peter,” she said carefully. “What’s really going on?”

“Just what I said,” Peter said with a shrug.

“No, it’s not,” she said. “There’s something else going on, here.”

“You know, that thing where doms act as if you know subs better than we know ourselves is not nearly as romantic as people make it out to be,” Peter said.

She frowned. “Now you’re just deflecting.”

“No,” he said. “It’s just annoying when other people try to tell you how you feel-”

“I don’t think I know how you feel, I just think you’re not telling me something.”

Peter sighed and stepped back, his body tugging on the leash again. “Can you just drop this? _Please_?”

“You know asking me that is only going to make me even more curious.”

“Well, I really don’t want to talk about it,” Peter said, turning away and walking forward. For a moment, the leash was so tight he thought he was going to pull it right out of her hand, but then it loosened as she followed him, thought it remained a bit taut, her frustration literally pulling on his neck.

“Peter, why won’t you-”

“I shouldn’t _have_ a fanclub, okay?” Peter snapped. “It’s stupid and pointless and...”

“And what?”

“I don’t want to go. And I don’t want to be a part of the club.”

“What do you mean you shouldn’t _have_ a fanclub?” she asked, reeling him in close as they approached a more crowded street. Speaking lowly towards his ear, low enough only Peter’s enhanced hearing would pick up her words, she said, “You’re a hero, Peter, to a lot of people in our school and our city-”

“Well, they’re stupid.”

“-including me.”

Peter swallowed and kept his eyes on the sidewalk ahead of them.

“And don’t bring up my dad again, you already know what I have to say about that.”

“He didn’t think I was hero,” Peter said. “And considering how much I not only broke the promise he used his last breaths to have me make, but shattered it and stomped all over it, I doubt he _would_ think I’m a hero now, either.”

“He thought you _could_ be.”

“He called me a vigilante in a unitard,” Peter said. “And he was right, he was probably the only one who was right about me.”

“And you said that _he_ said he was wrong about you,” she said. “And when he first started hunting you down, he said that considering what you were doing, it was just a ‘damn shame’ you weren’t a cop.”

Peter snorted incredulously.

“Peter,” she insisted. “You- look, if you really don’t want to go to the club, that’s one thing, but to think the club shouldn’t even exist in the first place-”

“It’s stupid is what it is. Seriously, I wear tights and wander around rooftops-”

“-and take down criminals and save lives-”

“ _Gwen_.”

“The guilt complex really doesn’t suit you,” she said.

Peter huffed but said nothing.

She sighed. “I will convince you somehow, Peter. About all this.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Peter muttered.

He really hadn’t meant for her to take that as a challenge.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long update time! I've been editing old chapters and reposting them to my Tumblr, and I had hoped to have all the old chapters edited before posting the next part, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
> 
> [Here](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-a-smile-or-three) is the fic on Tumblr, with the fic being edited and reposted in pieces. Once this fic is done, I'll finish editing the old chapters here on AO3 (so if you like this version better, download now!)
> 
> In the mean time, please let me know what you think!
> 
> (Also, anyone willing to beta?)

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! :)


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